


King Under the Mountain

by thefireplanet



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Sorry Not Sorry, always a girl bilbo, fem!Bilbo, i am completely trampling over canon, i kid you not, lion king AU, spot the fairy tale references, the AU where Smaug is a shapeshifter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefireplanet/pseuds/thefireplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tricked into thinking he killed his father, a guilt-ridden dwarf flees into exile and abandons his identity as the future king. (Or, alternately: Not every fairy-tale can have a happy ending.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TA 2980: In which the story begins.

“How is he?”

“As well as to be expected! My word, what a callous question—don’t you roll your eyes at me, Billa Baggins! That poor child has just lost his parents to _drowning_.”

“There is no need to whisper it, Lobelia. The boy can’t hear, and it’s not as if you can _catch_ drowning by speaking of it.”

“Well, I _never_ —where—where are you going? Billa! Billa Baggins, don’t you dare go in that room, the boy needs peace—“

“The boy _needs_ family.”

“ _Billa Baggins_ —“

* * *

Billa quickly opens and shuts the door to her nephew’s room. There is a small fire blazing in the hearth, making it nearly uncomfortably, unbearably warm; the light shining through the rounded window is the bright, hopeful sun of early morning, but her nephew is not paying it any heed, bundled and trundled as he is beneath several large quilts. She pads softly across the blessedly cool tile and settles herself on the edge of the bed.

“Hello, you,” she says after a beat, poking the mound of blanket by her hand. The thing beneath stirs but says nothing. She spreads out her skirts for something to do and then continues, rather sternly, “Frodo Baggins, you come out this instant.”

There is another pause, before, rather reluctantly, a small, brown-curled head can be seen inching its way up through the layers of down. She watches the progress, feeling amused despite the heavy weight settling on her chest.

“Let’s see then—hair, yes. Oh! And a forehead! Two eyes, a nose—a mouth—and there. We finally have a hobbit.”

Her nephew looks horrible—eyes blotchy and red with tears, nose a startling shade of pink; his skin has faded to an unhealthy, chalky white. Billa clucks and immediately reaches forward to smooth down the hair wild about his head. “There, love. How are you feeling?”

Frodo shakes his head, and his small, plump lip begins to tremble.

“Oh, now is not a time for tears! Not when I’m here!”

“But Aunt,” he manages after a sharp inhalation, voice cracked and raw and young, “you’re only h-here for t-t-the funeral!” He wails sharply at the last, and Billa scoots closer, flicking his forehead roughly.

“That is hardly the truth, my dear lad!” He stops crying almost immediately, small hand fishing its way out of blankets to rub at the spot on his forehead. His blue eyes are very, very wide, and she continues, examining the dirt under one finger nail, “I am actually here to tell you a story, but if you do not want to hear it, than I shall leave.”

“No!” He says, almost immediately. “No, please don’t, Auntie Billa. I love your stories.”

“That’s because they are the best, they are.” She smiles, proud of the front she puts forward. “Now, what would you like to hear? Oh! How about one of the elves? Or a tale of Tom Bombadil, down near the Barrow-Downs—“

He wipes petulantly at his face, smearing tears and snot over his cheeks, and says, very Tookishly, “I’ve heard all those before.”

“Liar.”

“No, you told them at your last birthday party.”

“Oh, I did, did I?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see. I can tell you…well, there’s…I suppose—“

“Tell me about dwarves, Auntie Billa.”

Her hand, where it had been rubbing soothing circles through the blanket, stops. Her mouth goes dry. She says, after a pause, “I don’t know too much about dwarves, my dear lad—“

Frodo sniffs loudly. She continues, very quickly, “And it’s not as if they are interesting. Quite boring, besides. Now, the _elves_. There’s a race.”

Frodo says nothing, just stares balefully at her, and she heaves a great sigh, heart pounding, and manages, “I shall make up a story for you. How does that sound?”

“Will it have dwarves?”

“Perhaps,” and she can’t help her small smile. She stands from the bed and drags the plush, green chair from the corner of the room, settling herself into its welcoming folds. “Now, to begin—“

Her mind is awash with unwelcome memories, things she knows will be dragged back to the surface, but before she can think too long and too hard Frodo asks, very seriously, “Is this a kissing story?”

She laughs. “You'll have to listen to find out, won’t you?”

Frodo mumbles something, shrugging further beneath the blankets.

“Now. Once upon a time—“

“That’s an awfully boring way to start.” Muffled, through several layers of quilt. Billa raises her eyebrows.

“And it shall be an awfully boring story, if you continue interrupting.”

“…sorry, Auntie.”

“Mhm. Now. Where was I? Oh, yes.

In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit. She was a very respectable hobbit, she was, and never had any adventures at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was thinking of writing a snow white!AU, right? but then i was like: A LION KING AU/CROSSOVER THING WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER. so i tried to marry them.
> 
> this should be a journey, folks. 
> 
> a circle of life journey, hardy-har-har. 
> 
> (shhh i know i'm crazy)


	2. That's Not an Orc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TA 2934: In which the hobbit lass finds a mysterious stranger.

The sky is slate gray through the paned glass of her window. Billa Baggins sighs, breath fogging little, strange designs on the surface before her. She twirls her finger through the moisture, a line, two, drawing a river and a scraggly, poor-looking tree. After several long seconds it fades, and she’s left with the same view of the Shire she had been staring at for the past two weeks. She turns.

Bag End looks as if all the Tooks had tramped through on parade. Her father’s armchair is piled high with pieces of parchment, rolled and folded, that she had a great need to read; on the floor, strewn about, are various articles of clothing, several open, discarded books, and three mugs of tea; the table overlooking her front garden plays host to near fifty cards, unopened, which she had yet to answer. She sighs, bodily, and tiptoes her way to the kitchen, intending to put on a kettle.

She stops in the doorway, surveying the half-eaten breakfast, the untouched second breakfast, the scones, the tarts, and her frown deepens. She whirls back through the parlor, stomps into the entrance hall, grabs the first umbrella she can find through the mounds of cloaks, and throws open the great, round-green door.

The air is damp, smelling electric and wet, bracing and cool. She nods firmly, steps out onto her front stair, and shuts the door behind her, before hobbling forward on her umbrella. She hasn’t been outside properly in weeks, and the feeling of broad, open sky above her instead of cozy smial is strange. She straightens and begins the path leading from Bag End’s front door.  

“Mistress Billa! What’re you doing? It’s to rain soon!”

“Yes, Master Hamfast, but not for awhile yet,” she answers through gritted teeth, speedily walking past the little old hobbit on her way down the hill. She hears his voice following her and quickens.

“Did you get my note? I’m awfully sorry about the whole business!”

“Yes, thank you!” She raises her hand but continues forward. East Farthing Woods, with its great, twisting branches and soft green undergrowth, was looking more and more appealing, even in this confounded weather. “I’ve been busy!”

“Mistress Billa, today’s not a good day for a walk.”

“Yes, thank you,” she manages, passing another hobbit without stopping, unable to see who it is through the side of her eye. She hops Bill’s garden fence, races through his pumpkin patch, and comes out the path on the other side, picking up speed. She is passing the Green Dragon now, warm and inviting in the half-light, though she finds she is not quite in the mood for a tankard, yet.

“Billa Baggins, where on earth are you going, at such a speed? It’s disgraceful!”

She shuts her eyes, praying for patience. “For a walk, Lobelia,” she calls.

“A _walk_? In this weather?” The shrill voice follows her.

“Yes!”

She hits the main road, continuing her quick steps for several more seconds before slowing to a more leisurely pace with a relieved sort of sigh, the umbrella banging against her exposed shins. The road is quiet. Not even the chirping of the sparrow-birds. But the air is, if rather cold, nice, and refreshing after the stifle of Bag End. The woods are rising steadily on either side of her, and she scampers up the bank of the road, heading beneath their overhang, feet and toes digging into cool, fresh earth.

“ _The road goes ever on and on_ ,” she hums tunelessly to herself, coming up amid brush and trees, and that’s when she hears rustling. She turns sharply to the left, waiting with baited breath, hands clenched around the handle of her umbrella, but then three—no, four—hobbitlings burst from the woods, wheeling over each other before falling in a heap near her feet. She sighs in relief, loosening her grip, and then immediately berates herself.

Nothing ever came to the Shire. What did she expect?

“Miss Baggins!”

“Miss Baggins!”

“Miss Billa!”

She laughs, despite herself, and settles the point of her umbrella in the soft earth, leaning against it. “Hello, there. Your parents will not be too happy about your being out in this weather—‘specially yours, Daisy.”

“Well, what about you?” Young Gilly Brownlock sniffs, staggering to his feet and brushing off his pant legs. “You’re out!”

Daisy elbows him sharply. “You can’t say that, not when her mother’s just—“

“It’s all right, Daisy, lass,” Billa laughs, but without as much mirth as before. She adds, sternly: “Though certainly, you should listen to older hobbits, you should.”

“Miss Billa, Mama said we could stay out until the rain started,” the youngest, Hilda Brandybuck, visiting from the great hall, settles her thumb in her mouth.

“May we walk with you, Mistress Billa?” Lily, the only one to remain standing and the only one in a still-white dress, asks, blinking large, brown eyes.

Billa sighs.

“Oh, please, please, please, Miss Baggins!” Daisy cries. “You can tell us all about the elves!”

“You can learn about those by reading some books, my dear girl.” She fights the urge to rub the bridge of her nose.

“Then you can play Pigeons with us!” Gilly grins, gap-toothed and wild. Billa frowns.

“There are no pigeons in the East Farthing Woods, Gilly—“

“There are! The game is you run and make them fly up in the air!”

“Probably pheasants, then,” Billa mutters, but Hilda and Gilly are already running back the way they came, Lily following at a dignified walk, and Daisy is grabbing her hand, so that she sighs bodily but lets herself be drawn forward, resigned to the fact that no one was listening to her, anyway.

“Roar!” Gilly yells, rather unnecessarily, arms raised, barreling into the trees, Hilda at his heels.

“Careful,” Billa calls mildly, but without much force, listening to the sound of their growling and laughing becoming distant and faint. Daisy is trying to get her attention. A sudden crack of thunder sounds overhead, and Lily sniffs, but before Billa can tell them _again_ that really, they should not be out here, she hears a high-pitched wail that makes every hair on the back of her neck stand straight up. She stops, grabbing for the back of Lily’s dress.

The screaming grows louder. Daisy’s nails cut into her palm. Billa shoves the smaller girl next to Lily and gets a better grip on her umbrella, pulling it up to wield like some sort of spear—

Gilly and Hilda burst from the underbrush, crying, screaming, and Billa shouts, after the pause in which she regains her breath and some composure, “What! For goodness sake, _what_!”

“There’s a m-m-monster! A-a-an _orc_!” Gilly stutters, toppling forward into her skirts and latching onto her leg. She looks towards the sky, clouded by leaves and great swaths of gray clouds, and thinks that she cannot have relaxing walks anymore. The world is damned against her.

“Hush, Gilly,” she sighs. “There _are_ no monsters in the East Farthing Woods—nothing worse than foxes, anyway. As for orcs, they come out only at night, and only far away.”

“It—it—it was a goblin, then!” Hilda cries.

“I highly doubt it,” Billa sighs, heart finally slowing to a respectable rate. Another peal of thunder overhead. She looks at the sky, which had darkened palpably in the past few minutes, and then squints into the forest ahead. Normally, on one of the Shire’s bright, sunny days, one could see a path clear through the East Farthing Woods. They were light, airy, a carpet of green leaves supporting tress of every kind. But now, under the threat of the storm and with the echoes of the little hobbit cries settling over the air, it appears menacing, dark, and she can clearly discern only a few feet before her. She clucks her tongue. “Alright. I shall investigate this orc.”

“Miss Billa,” Hilda hisses, wiping angrily across her eyes, “you have an _umbrella_.”

“Right I do, which is more than you lot. Now, I want you back to your smials, please. And do not come out until the storm is over.”

“I want to see it.” Dais crosses her arms petulantly. “I shall not go until I see it.”

“You shall go now,” Billa says firmly, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead, “and I shall later tell you about it. I promise tea and scones, then, and don’t I make the best tea and scones?”

The four children show no sign of moving. Billa watches as a breeze, frightfully cold, whips past the branches, rubbing leaves together like dry firewood.

“Did you know, orcs only like the tender meat of young hobbits? I shall be quite safe, but you—well.”

It’s low, and rather mean, but gets the job done, and yelling like Master Hamfast after one beer too many they race to the main road without a backwards glance, leaving her sighing in the middle of the wood. She kicks at the umbrella, frowning into the trees, and thinks to herself that she has been doing far too much sighing, lately, and not near enough useful, smart things, like reading.

No, instead she was, taking walks before storms. What would her mother say to that?

( _That’s my girl_.)

They look, at any rate, like normal trees. Oak or ash or some sort, reaching and twisting. Thunder peals again, and she seriously considers simply turning around, running back to Bag End, and locking the door, doubting as she is whatever young Gilly had seen. The shadows were dancing over the ground, making the small rock near her foot look like a snake, and that very well could be the answer to all this.

“Should’ve just walked further down the path, Billa,” she mumbles to herself, turning away. She walks purposefully towards the main road, gets as far as the path, and then twists right around, quickly, and pushes deep into the woods, cursing under her breath. 

The light is little now, and fading fast. So shadowed is it that she jumps at the next, sudden crack of thunder. The air smells faintly metallic, something fresh and unusual, and she wishes very much, very irrationally, to go home.

“Come, then, Billa,” she mutters, whacking a wayward branch with her umbrella. “It shall be a twisted root. Nothing more. Best to check and leave—“

She steps on something softy-yet-hard, not the familiar crack of leaves, and yelps, springing backward, nearly tripping over her own feet. She dives behind the shelter of an oak, several feet away, clutching her umbrella to her chest and breathing hard. Thunder rattles the sky, and this time lightning follows. She dares a small peek.

There is a hunched, dark shape, leaning against the gray trunk of the elm up ahead. Lightning flashes again, briefly illuminating a male form, draped in dark clothes, and the glint or flash of something silver. She gulps several deep breaths, but the figure does not move. Slowly, carefully, she works up her resolve. 

She inches out into view, until she is within reach, and then delivers the sharp, metal tip of her umbrella into one of the figure’s legs. This close, and she can make out two of them (thank goodness!), two arms—folded over a broad chest—and a face shrouded by thick, black hair.

She had read, before, of the orc, and this man did not fit the description—no bare head, no fangs, no mottled flesh. Nor was he a _man_ man, like the kind she had sometimes seen skirting the borders of Brandy Hall.

No, he was much too _small_ for that.

Billa pokes him once more with her umbrella. A white flash of light, and she can make out mail glistening under a rip in his shirt. She dares another step forward, and another, until she is close enough to smell the musk and sweat and underlying metallic _something_ radiating off of him in cloying waves. She reaches a tentative hand forward, brushing back a braided strand of hair, enough to see a shorn beard and a hawk nose, and she nearly laughs.

“It’s not an orc,” she says to no one in particular, almost dizzy with relief. “It’s a dwarf.”

The rain begins. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who kudo'd/bookmarked/commented! hopefully this chapter is a little more exciting than the previous, and this really starts the whole thing, so :)
> 
> as to dates: i have placed the first two by book account, i believe, and so that you can recognized that this is happening in story/the past and the prologue was in the future (duh), but overall i wouldn't put too much stock in them. just go by movie age difference (though not necessarily ages) for thorin and billa, and know that the dates of things will be pushed around. sorry to the tolkien purist, but this is already trampling over canon anyway!
> 
> thanks for reading :)


	3. First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TA 2934: Which is full of (not so great) first meetings.

“Oh, this is lovely. Just great, really, thank you!” Billa shouts at the sky, struggling to push her umbrella open and get a modicum of protection up against the deluge. Lightning flashes, and she notices properly for the first time the frightful floral pattern inching its way over the cloth.

It was one of her father’s, then. He had always been a little strange in his decorating sensibilities.

She is still fumbling with the clasp when the greatest drumbeat of thunder yet racks the sky, and in that moment something rough clamps around her wrist. She finds herself being thrown roughly, back biting against the gray bark of the elm. Her umbrella clatters to a dull stop several feet away, completely lost in the matted undergrowth.

She feels cold steel pressed to her throat.

The dwarf is on his feet, and none too steady. She eyes him warily, hardly daring to breathe, or swallow, the blade kissing her neck. The dwarf’s upper lip is raised in a snarl, matted hair framing his face; now, as he stands, she notices the blood running in little rivulets from his hairline to his jaw. His eyes are very blue, regarding her shrewdly, but even then she is reminded of the wild deer she sometimes came across on walks—

Ready to bolt at a moment’s notice.

Lightning, again, and she finally dares to speak, though quietly, afraid to jar the blade at her neck. “Are you going to kill me, then?” She frowns. “Because if you do not do it quick, this storm will finish us both.”

She feels the steel sliding up and down her skin.

“Where am I?” The dwarf growls, by way of response. His mouth twists. His voice is deep, Billa thinks, rather giddy at the whole situation. Like gravel-velvet. She fights the completely unnecessary urge to laugh.

“The Shire,” she dares to raise her voice over the pounding rain, feeling the blade slip a little. Her hair is hanging limply around her face and she is, by this point, soaked through.

“Are the Blue Mountains near?”

“Brandy Hall is that way.” She gestures vaguely. "Other than that." She shrugs.

He curses then, in a tongue that sounds like falling rocks. The blade is still pressed to her throat, and she snipes, watching it shave the skin there, “Now, Master Dwarf, you would do well to let me go. Unless you think I am to find my umbrella and stab you through with it, which I very well might. I have been having a horrible day.”

He regards her, lips pursed, and then takes a wavering step backward. She gulps deeply. It takes several attempts but the dwarf manages to sheath his sword, and that’s when she notices the blood seeping through the blue linen of his shirt, turning it almost black. She starts. “Well, you look a right mess.”

“You have no right to speak to me as such, _halfling_ ,” he hisses back, one arm involuntarily going across his middle.

Billa had often dreamt of meeting foreigners, but mostly her dreams had consisted of elves, or great kings of men—never once had she entertained the notion that meeting a dwarf would be a fine thing. She stares at him hard for several seconds, and then begins tramping through the difficult underbrush to find her umbrella.

“You’ll find the doctor along Bag Shot Row. As for inns, well, we have a tavern. That will have to suit.” She bends down, shucking her fingers through dirt, finally catching on something wood. She pulls up her now mud-soaked umbrella like she’s pulling up daisies, turns to the dwarf, and continues, “May you enjoy your stay in the Shire, among _halflings_. Good day.” She bobs a curtsey, lightning forking its way across the sky.

She hears a muted thud. When she looks back, the dwarf is on his knees.

“Oh, for goodness sake! You can't stay here, and bleed all over the trees. _Children_ play in these woods!”

The dwarf eyes her, but the blue looks clouded, unfocused. She looks at the skin of his hand, which is coated red, and when she looks down at her wrist she finds that blood is there, too, already being washed away by the rain.

“No,” she says, firmly, more to herself than to him. “I shan’t do it. I have enough to deal with, with the funeral, and the mourners, and I have to sort out Bag End. No. I shan’t.”

* * *

 “Lobelia will have my head for this,” Billa pants. “Come on, then, just a few more steps.”

Bag End, outlined forest green against the dark of the sky, looks empty, and forlorn, no fire yet lit in the hearth. The ground is soggy, and she’s soaked through—her hands and feet are nearly numb. It was truly a miracle they had made it out of the forest at all.

The dwarf is leaning heavily across her shoulders, and she tries purposefully not to think about the blood gathering there. He weighs a mountain, practically, and she cannot support him for much longer.

“I shall have to let go, to open the door,” she tells him sternly, as if she was dealing with naught but a child. “You must stand on your own for a moment, I’m afraid.”

He complies, straightening. His breathing has become more labored, his eyes worse. She scurries forward, clicking open the lock and pushing the round door in. She hears the scrape and push of various items being moved across the floor. She hobbles inside, wincing at the _drip drip drip_ of water.

“Excuse the mess,” she says, out of habit. “I’ve been a bit—pre-occupied. Lately.”

He doesn’t move, eying the opening distrustfully.

“Come in or stay out, but you cannot do both.”

He limps forward into the entrance hall, eyeing the dark space distastefully. She kicks a cloak out of the way and begins walking to the Oak Hall. “I’ll put you in the spare room,” she calls behind her, “because it’s closer.”

His boots fall like mini earthquakes, uneven and broken, and she inwardly flinches. She reaches the door and throws it open, coughing at the little cloud of dust that swirls up. The bed is made, but the patterning of the blankets is old. A single, small window looks out over the far side of the Shire, green fields painted gray in the storm. The fireplace is cold and empty.

“It’s not much, but it’ll have to do. Here you go,” she settles herself under his arm again, surprised by how easily she fits there, head reaching his shoulder, and leads him to the bed. He collapses without another word, not even bothering to turn back the sheets.

Billa sighs.

She quickly moves to get a fire going in the hearth, chattering inanely as she does. The dwarf makes no sign that he is paying any attention to her.

“I’ll have to call for the doctor myself, as, unfortunately, I have no good skill in this sort of thing. I mean, I can bandage with the best of them , but this—“ she pauses in throwing a log onto the growing flame, looking at the deep slash cutting across his stomach, “—is beyond me.”

The fire crackles to life, much too merry, a counterpoint to the drip-drop of the heavy rain on the window. She wipes her hands on her still damp skirts and straightens, pushing her hair out of her face.

“Will you die, then, if I leave you alone?”

He glares at her.

“Good. I should hate the mess.”

She leaves, not shutting the door after her. Speed seems best, and she does not bother to change, nor grab an umbrella, but before she throws open the door once more she has enough time to lament the muddied, bloodied state of her carpets.

“Why couldn’t it have been an elf?” She mutters to herself, stepping once more into the cold rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cranking this sucker out. updates will get sporadic because of hell (by which i mean school) starting up again. 
> 
> thanks for reading, lovelies :)


	4. Baruk Khazâd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TA 2934: In which the hobbit lass tries to play doctor.

Billa makes it to the front gate, hobbling through the sheet of rain, but can go no further. “Bollocks,” she hisses, squinting through the gloom. The path leading from Bag End down to the rest of Hobbiton was quite washed out, and she doubts she could even get five feet before falling prey to the mud. She stands for several long seconds, looking at the miniature rivers racing past, feeling entirely worn out, and wishes she had decided to stay indoors today.

A long, low howl, floats over the distant hills. The hair on the back of her neck rises. She turns, head cocked, but a crack of thunder directly overhead leaves her ears ringing, and she is sure, after a moment, that she had been hearing things. Shaking her head, Billa turns back inside.

The puddle that collects around her feet as she shuts the green door is large enough to sail a small boat upon. She sighs, wringing out her hair and fighting against damp, sticky skirts as she stamps through the parlor and into the kitchen, grabbing a pot and some linens.

“The road’s washed out. We haven’t had a storm this bad since—“

A hand, nearly large enough to cover the entirety of her lower face, slaps over her mouth. The pot hits the floor with a clang like thunder. She begins protesting immediately as the dwarf drags her roughly to a squat against the wall. The fire had been banked, nothing now but burning embers.

“Quiet!” The dwarf hisses in her ear. He looks wild, crazed, eyes trained on the far window.

Billa does what any respectable hobbit would do in a similar situation:

She bites him.

“ _Baruk Khazâd_ —” He begins, but cuts himself off abruptly, eyebrows drawing together slightly even as she detangles herself and stands.

“What is,” Billa pants, looking at the dwarf hunkered in the corner with a frown, “the _matter_ , Master Dwarf? You're bleeding all over the floor!”

It was true.

It takes him a moment to come back to himself. She can see it in the blue of his eyes. At last he grits, through clenched teeth: “A warg scout. I heard it."

“A wa—a warg scout. Well.” She picks up the pan and levels it at his face. “That was most likely a wolf.”

“You think I don’t know a warg when I hear it?” He bristles, now looking very much like a trapped bear.

“I think you are injured,” she snaps, by way of response. She matches his glare haughtily, and after another beat, two, she continues: “Now, what may I call you, Master Dwarf? If I am to treat you, I should at least know your name.”

“It is customary,” he manages, wincing, “for the host to introduce herself first.”

“And it is customary for the rescued to be grateful.”

There is another long beat, several heartbeats worth, in which her damp hands clam up on the handle of the pot and he glares weakly in her direction, clutching his side. Lightning flashes. She sees, again, the wild look in his eyes, and turns slowly to place the pan down on the bedside table. She’s startled when she hears that rough growl of a voice behind her.

“I am Thorin,” he pauses, at length, then: “Oakenshield. At your service.”

She nods, slowly, laying the linens she had tucked beneath her arm down across the bed. “Billa Baggins. At yours.”

She turns and wobbles a little curtsey, slightly limp given her current state of dress. Thorin seems to attempt some form of diplomacy, a head bow, maybe, but halfway through he hisses. His skin is deathly pale beneath the dark mat of his hair. She clucks, trying to hide the knot forming in her stomach.

“Well, Master Oakenshield, back to bed with you. How you got up in the first place is beyond me.”

She begins to reach towards him, to aid his ascent, but he glares, shirking up the wall slowly, carefully. She shrugs, nonplussed, and heads to the dying embers of the fire, hunkering down to coax them back to life.

“The wargs—“

“I can handle _wargs_ just fine, thank you,” she sniffs. “And we shall look much more suspicious without some warmth. A large smial, and no fire, in this storm? Certainly not! They’d come right here.”

She expects some sort of protest. She blows on the embers, watching the fire catch, and tosses another log on it for good measure. When she turns, Thorin is back upon the bed, mouth a grim line, eyes trained on a distant spot in the ceiling.

Wherever the dwarf was, it was not there with her.

She sighs. His muddied, horrible boots nearly hang over the footboard, and he looks _wrong_ , somehow. Too big. She stares very, very hard at those boots for several moments, and as she does the situation hits her like a fist to the stomach, and she doubles over, turning back to the fire to hide the panic welling up across her face.

A dwarf.

A _dwarf_.

A _wounded_ dwarf.

She was a respectable hobbit. She had to be a respectable hobbit, she could not simply go out of the blue rescuing perfect strangers—no, her father taught her right, that always led to—to— _adventures_ —

She crosses her arms over her stomach and rests her head on the edge of the mantle, looking into the rising flames. They are warm, tickling her feet. She breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth, fighting the blackness eating away at the edges of her vision.

But she couldn’t very well leave him to die. Which he certainly would, if she didn’t help.

“Bother,” she exhales, closing her eyes, wishing desperately for a time when the world was bright and sunny, when her mother’s presence still haunted these halls, when Billa could tramp on long walks without having to worry about—about _things_ —

She turns and marches forcefully toward Thorin Oakenshield, lest she lost her nerve completely. His eyes are fluttering shut. She reaches for the edges of his tunic, worn and weather-beaten, and immediately they flash open again, trained on her. She says, sternly, “You shall have to let me. And the doctor, later, beside.”

He stares. He does a lot of that, staring. As if he can see into her soul. She fights a shiver, but cannot stop the goose bumps that rise along her arms. After a moment he looks away, which she takes as a consent.

When she cannot pull it off without jarring the wound she makes a quick dash to the kitchen, grabbing her strongest steak knife and a pitcher of water. She runs back, liquid sloshing over her feet. She dumps it into the pot and places it over the fire, to boil, and then sets to work cutting his shirt.

It’s strange work, to be sure, but after the first slash she bites her tongue and focuses and generally stops _thinking_ too hard about it. She had bandaged many a small hobbitling, and certainly her mother had bandaged her. She makes a cut around the arms.

How hard could this possibly be?

The final cut, and she pulls the tunic away, blanching quickly at what she sees.

There is a long gash across his abdomen, several inches deep, bleeding slowly. Other bruises and scars dot his chest. Billa nearly faints.

The worst injury she had ever seen had been when Hamfast had broken his ankle, and if she multiplied that by ten it still would be nothing near this.

The water is bubbling to a boil over the fire, and she goes to remove it, fighting to keep her breathing even. She dips the linens in, pulling out steaming cloth carefully, and says, “This may sting.” Which is, perhaps, the greatest lie she has ever told. Thorin Oakenshield, though, says nothing, not even as the first of the boiling bandages gets swathed across his wound.

His eyes, steady, unmoving, are fixed at that spot on the ceiling.

He makes not a sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, lovelies :)
> 
> dwarvish: "Baruk Khazâd" means "Axes of the Dwarves!" In his surprise at Billa's audacity, Thorin growls the first thing that comes to his head, which is his old battle cry.


	5. My Second Cousin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TA 2934: In which the hobbit lass does her best and promotes a lie.

Billa collapses onto the worn brown chair in her parlor, effectively flattening the pile of papers lying there. Flinching, she drags them out and tosses them to the floor: old letters her mother had left, inquiries about the state of Bag End (mostly from the Sackville-Bagginses), half-written pages of nonsense rhymes. They float to the ground like snowflakes. Outside the rain is dwindling to little pitter-patters against her front window.

She stares straight ahead, blinking, fisting her hands in the folds of her now-hard skirts. When she takes the back of her hand and wipes it across her mouth she notices two things:

Copious amounts of copper, burnt-red, dried blood.

Shaking.

She clenches her hand again, sets it back in her lap, and continues staring forward. She can feel the heavy weight of her parent’s gazes above her. She blinks rapidly.

“The storm will end,” she whispers to herself, “and then you shall fetch the doctor, and all shall be well. No use sitting here.”

Yet, she finds she cannot stand, despite her attempts. The rain finally stops, and she stays seated. The gray of the sky through the bubble glass of her window is lightening, the sun now a close promise instead of distant hope. At last, listening to the water drip off the eaves, she gets to her feet.

In the kitchen she fills a shallow bowl of cool water, placing her hands inside. The rust dissolves immediately, turning the clear liquid a dingy red. Balancing it carefully on the pads of her fingers, she tips over to the small window, opens it, and tosses, smothering her already over-watered hydrangeas beneath it. The air is still biting, cold, and she shivers as she steps back, closing the latch. She refills the bowl, grateful for the tedious normalcy of it all, sloshing the cool water over her face, shaking out her damp curls—

A hollow knock sounds at the door.

She pauses, reaching slowly for the nearest towel to dry her hands, the one hanging over the back of her dining chair. The sky might be clearing, but the road could hardly be passable.

She waits, looking towards the large window of the parlor.

Another knock, more forceful, followed by a strange scratching noise—her throat closes up. A large shadow, visible even in the gloom, passes in front of her parlor window, and then—

Silence.

She slinks carefully to the door, peering out the rounded side frame, pushing aside half-burnt candles and dried, twisted flowers, but outside the world is wet, limp, and very, very empty.

* * *

 

“What did you say he was, again?”

“My, um, second cousin. On my mother’s side. From Bree. He’s a little—um, odd.” She stops before her door, leaning back conspiratorially and whispering behind her hand to the doctor, “We don’t mention it, much, but there must have been some _foreign_. Um, breeding. Somewhere back. It’s why he looks so odd, and explains the excess—of hair.”

She opens the door. Bag End is still slightly damp, even with the fire roaring in the kitchen and the parlor and the one she was keeping continuously lit in the spare room. “Excuse the mess,” she says, stepping inside. “Just—with the unexpected company, and all.”

“Yes. Of course.” Hugo Bracegirdle, she thinks, must be more Sackville than anything else, for there is distaste lining his throat as he follows her in, continuing, “How did you say your…cousin, injured himself, again?”

“Oh, I didn’t. He was farming.”

“Farming?”

“Um, yes. He—there was this plow, and—anyway, nasty cut, really. Straight ‘cross his middle.”

She knocks once, rapidly, on the door to the spare room before pushing it open and stepping inside. Thorin Oakenshield is where she left him, quite prone across the quilt, and still very, very pale.

“I did the best I could, under the circumstances.”

The doctor pauses beside her, taking in the state of the patient—matted hair, dried blood, poorly done suturing job—and can only manage a sharp, “Poor fellow.”

Billa laughs nervously. “Yes, indeed.”

* * *

  _My dear Hamfast,_

_Thanks ever so much for your kind wishes at this difficult time. ~~There was certainly never~~ I hope you enjoy the seeds and_

Billa’s quill skirts across the paper, dragging a line of dark black ink with it, and she curses under her breath. “I’m coming! Steady on!”

There is another knock on the door (only this time she is prepared) as she settles her quill on the table. She stands, forcefully moving to the entrance hall. When she throws open the door, she nearly shuts it again—is about to get away with it, too—except the hand of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is preventing it.

“My dear Billa,” she smiles tightly. “How _ever_ are you doing?”

“Fine, thanks,” Billa frowns.

“I heard a rumor from my nephew that our second cousin was in town.”

“My. _My_ second cousin, and he’s still quite ill. No visitors. Sorry.”

And this time she does send the door sailing shut in Lobelia’s face.

* * *

She balances a bowl of soup on one of her mother’s old serving trays, pushing the door open with her back. Turning, red liquid sloshing dangerously close to the edge, she finds—

The room. Completely and utterly empty.

She frowns, settling the tray on the nightstand, checking surreptitiously beneath the flat, still-mussed sheets. “Master Oakenshield?” She calls, dipping to investigate under the bed. “Confound this dwarf!” She snaps, after several seconds of silence, stomping out into the Oak Hall. She spies, ahead, a shadowed figure in the East Hall, just before the atrium, and sighs.

“Master Dwarf, I do believe that when the doctor told you to stay in bed he meant for you to _stay in bed_.”

As she nears she realizes he is standing before a stout, square looking glass, eyeing his reflection stonily. He is clothed only in his loose, nearly shredded breeches and his blue tunic (in the same state of disrepair). Beneath the open flap of his collar she spies the kiss of white bandages. In his hand he is holding a steak knife.

“I was wondering where that went,” she muses mildly, “after it disappeared from dinner last night. What are you doing? Give it here, that is my mother’s best silver.” She pauses a moment. “Was. That was my mother’s best silver.”

Thorin Oakenshield’s face was no longer dotted with dried blood. He was clean, though pallid, his black hair brushed back and smoothed at last, his nose hawk and sharp. His beard was growing bushy and thick around his mouth, and he says, evenly, blue eyes never leaving his reflection, “I must shave.”

“Sh— _shave_? Whatever for? I was under the impression that dwarves never did such a thing—“

He whirls on her, knife clasped expertly in his hand, and says, calmly, despite the fire behind his eyes, “Did you think that a few _books_ could teach you all there was to know about my people?”

She frowns, only slightly cowed by the knife being leveled at her. “No.”

“Then be silent, _halfling_.”

She clucks. “I will, if you give me the knife.” She holds out her hand, meeting the dwarf’s glare. “I shall get you my father’s shaving razor, in exchange.”

He seems to weigh this option carefully. Then, still glaring, he expertly tosses the knife into the air, catches it by the tip, and holds the handle out to her. She takes it, and goes to make good on her word.

When she returns he is in the same position, mouth a thin line. In her hand she holds the ivory-inlaid handle of her father’s razor, and she makes to pass it over with pursed lips, but pauses halfway there. “Why don’t you let me?”

He snatches the razor and brings it in a swift, too-violent motion against his cheek, shaving skin as well as hair. His beard falls to the floor, and she groans, looking at it—

One more of his messes, to clean up.

When she dares to look up again, sighing and crossing her arms, his beard is nearly gone, replaced by a smattering of welts and several deep scratches. His face seems strange and un-dwarflike, and mayhaps he thinks so as well, for he blinks rapidly after the last cut, letting his hand fall to his side.

Then he sways dangerously.

“Good, just what you need. More blood loss.”

He turns his glare towards her.

“Come, it’s been naught two days! You need to be _in bed_. And now your supper is probably cold. I shan’t heat it for you.”

She helps him hobble slowly back to the spare room. He is silent, foreboding. As he settles on the bed she wrenches the shaving razor from his grasp.

The blade is edged with blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, lovelies :)


End file.
